4 Conversion Optimization Tips That You Need to Know in 2015

January 22, 2015

Whether you’re in marketing for an SMB or the website manager for a large enterprise, if you’re responsible for generating website leads you’re going to want to optimize your efforts in every way possible to achieve the most lead conversions. After all, the more work you put in here, the less work you have to do as leads flow into your website and alleviate some of that pressure.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is one of the primary methods of improving incoming revenue through a website. It consists of the various actions taken to improve the likelihood that a visitor will click on your call to action. If your goal is to get visitors to download an eBook, optimize the entire page to compel them to do it.

CRO is a large and growing field and combines elements of behavioral psychology, website design, sales and marketing. There are tons of CRO techniques, but let’s narrow it down to 4 tips that you can easily apply, right now:

1. A/B testing is really the only reliable way to improve your conversion rate

Conversion rate optimization without testing is like firing into the dark. You have no clue whether or not your efforts are substantially increasing your CTR, or whether you are simply experiencing the fleeting and random winds of success.

Enter A/B testing.

A/B testing lets you compare two versions of a website. Some visitors get shown version A. Some visitors see version B. You run the test for a specified period of time, and look at the results.

One of those versions is going to have higher conversion rates. As long as the test is reliable, you can pick a clear winner. As long as you were testing just two elements between version A and version B, then you know exactly what it was on the page that created the higher conversion rates.

2. Bigger buttons really do help

If I had to give anyone a one-second tip to improve conversions, it would be this: Make your buttons bigger.

I’m referring, of course, to your call to action buttons, the famous CTA. A CTA is usually a button, although it can be a simple line or word of text.

Remember, conversion optimization is about making it more likely for a user to perform a given action. The “given action” is usually clicking the button. So what do you do?

You make the button bigger, more obvious, or otherwise impossible to miss.

3. Focus on user experience first. CRO will follow.

Conversion optimization and even SEO for that matter are so closely related to user experience that it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. I’d like to suggest that one of the most effective ways to improve your conversion rates is just to forget about “conversion” for a second, and instead focus on the “user.”

Simply ask some questions:

Who is your user or customer? All conversion optimization needs to start with this basic question.

What does the user want?

How did the user get to your page?

Why did the user come to the page?

What is the first thing the user will look at?

As you carefully examine each of these questions, you will come up with a clearer understanding of how to structure your page in order to best meet the user’s needs, tendencies, preferences, behavior, or interests.

4. Content converts.

Not every customer is going to happen upon your landing page and,bam!, convert just like that. Instead, users will become aware of your brand, your identity, your products, and your services over time and through content.

Content is the secret sauce that both attracts customers, and gradually converts them. One should not think of conversion rate optimization as an instant-noodles approach to boosting revenue. Growing conversions takes time. Although you will see an instant uptick by enlarging your CTA buttons and running split tests, you’ll never see the results of publishing content in quite the same way.

Getting more leads from your lead conversion efforts really isn’t complicated. If your goal is to generate more revenue in 2015, take advantage of some of the easy-to-apply tips from this blog. You’ll be surprised how well a little bit of effort in the field of CRO can drive results!